


Songs of the Wasteland

by Deidre Jubliee (Agth)



Category: Fallout - Fandom, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Explicit Language, Gambling, Gen, Implied Future Character Death, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Torture, Implied Underage, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Music, Las Vegas, Mild Gore, Multi, Nuclear Warfare, One Shot Collection, Other, Post Nuclear War, References to Suicide, Smoking, Western, Wilderness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 03:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agth/pseuds/Deidre%20Jubliee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots inspired by the soundtrack of Fallout : New Vegas.</p><p>Rating is variable between chapters, but tend towards a Teen or Non-Explicit Mature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home on the Range

**Author's Note:**

> Features a gender neutral, neutral karma Courier who's watched as the West was won and the Mojave was tamed.

By this point, the Courier had given up on dying.

New Vegas had been tamed, the West had been won, and the spirit of adventure had died a quiet, lonely death in the hospital room of ancient history. The world was rebuilding, reforming, and there was no place for the Courier, True Mortal of the Mojave, in it – not this time.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

As the Courier walked past the Goodsprings Cemetery and into the hills beyond, there was a moment of silence for that first death, that beautiful rebirth. For a moment, there was nostalgia for enemies long dead, battles long won, couriers long dug up. But that was fleeting.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

The Radscorpions that lived in the valley below the cemetery had long been exterminated by the Courier and kept at bay so that tourists from New Vegas could visit the place where the mysterious messenger of the Mojave rose from the grave. It was safer now, quieter perhaps, but certainly not any better. The Courier stopped at the crest of the opposite hill and looked back towards the cemetery, dark and quiet in the fleeting Nevada sunset. It was not the same place it had been all those many years ago.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

Down the mountain, the Courier made their way to the town of Bonnie Springs – rebuilt after the Vipers were wiped out and the walls were fortified against the rare Cazadors and Deathclaws that managed to survive the mass extermination campaigns. There would be food and shelter there, especially for a person of the Courier's status, but the Courier could not help but remember it as a burnt-out shell – testament to the dangers of the Wastes. Instead, the Courier made a neat campfire on a nearby ridge and slept until the following morning.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

The Courier walked until they reached Red Rock Canyon, laying down a sign of respect for the Great Khans who had once inhabited it. Now, they had degraded into smaller warring bands of bandits or they had been fully integrated into the society of the Mojave. The Courier ran a finger along the rock paintings, but could not stay.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

The Courier reached the outskirts of New Vegas in a few days and camped in the old lairs of the Fiends. There were still signs of them about – broken and buried syringes, empty packages of Mentats, and the faintest scent of blood. All of these things made the Courier stay a little longer, but it was not to last.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

The night the Courier had made the full loop around Vegas, they slept under the stars – watching in silence as the bright lights of the casinos and the growing glare from the other towns of the wastes slowly blotted out the sky as the Courier once remembered it. It was a dead sky now.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

The 1-88 was a bustling highway once more– full of traders, travelers, tourists. The Courier kept to walking the road at night, although that didn't stop the occasional passerby's face from lighting up in awe when they saw a Mojave legend. It was no longer a lonely existence, travelling the Mojave Wasteland.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

As the Dino-Dee-Lite Gift Store's trademark tyrannosaurus rose up above the horizon, the Courier took an abrupt turn towards the mountains. The night was lit up by spotlights displaying the green dinosaur protector in all of his glory.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

Nipton, still rebuilding after its destruction by the Legion, was much quieter, much more comfortable. The Courier stayed in the outskirts of town, hiding from all passerby. At this distance, the Mojave Outpost's monumental statues loomed over the horizon, which was as close as the Courier could get to visiting the defunct divide between civilization and the wastes.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

It took the Courier four days to get to Primm and only two hours to leave it. It had prospered under the presence of the law and had grown to become an important trading hub for the entire Mojave. While tempted to visit the Mojave Express office a final time, the constant whirring of machinery and the occasional guitar riff in the Courier's ears would not allow it.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

The Courier looked upon Goodsprings impassively. The town where it all began had grown into a tourist attraction. The General Store sold Courier memorabilia. Prospector Salon regaled travelers in mystical tales in which the Courier single handedly brought down the Powder Gangers, in which the Courier spent three days out in the wilderness and returned with a sack full of Cazador eggs, in which the Courier was a divine creature of infinite wit, luck, and skill. Even Victor's old house – where the Courier had resided before leaving for Primm and parts unknown – had been converted into a Courier museum of sorts, memorializing every item of value the Courier had supposedly ever owned. From the gold bars stolen from deep within the mysterious Sierra Madre Casino, to the helmet of a disorderly tribal leader from the canyons of Zion, to the strange Transportalponder which could send an unsuspecting person into the dangerous crater of Big Mountain, and to the framed duster that the Courier had reportedly received after winning the Battle of the Divide from a terrifying dark doppelganger. None of this piqued the Courier's interest.

So the Courier pressed on.

\---

In the wee small hours of the morning, the Courier made the trek to the Goodsprings Cemetery one last time. Maria felt heavy as the hour of truth fast approached. With shaking hands, two 9 mm rounds – made from two shell casings stolen from Doc Mitchell's operating table so long ago – were loaded. There wouldn't be a need for the second bullet - that much was certain - but nostalgia blinds us all. A neatly dug grave was at the ready, lovingly restored as a tourist attraction.

As the morning sun began to rise, the Courier brought a deadened head to their forehead.

\---

A mouth whispered last words.

A calm finger pulled the trigger.

A body fell halfway into an old grave.

A morning sun rose.

The Wasteland was wild no longer.

So the Courier pressed on.


	2. Come Fly with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy Whitman dreams to fly -- one last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more optimistic, a little shorter. Such is my writing. I just can't get into something that isn't saturated with angst and despair.

It had been a good forty years since Navarro fell, since the oil rig burst into flame and the Enclave gave its last gasps of breath in the West. It had been a good twenty years since Daisy Whitman -- an unassuming middle-aged woman, now in her sixties -- had settled down in the little town of Novac. But it had only been two weeks, two GLORIOUS weeks, since those ghoul driven rockets had blasted off into the stratosphere and into Daisy's heart. 

Now, that might sound a little poetic, but don't take this little old lady as a nancy-pancy, doily making granny. Back in her hey-day, she was a firecracker -- a real live wire -- and the best damn vertibird pilot the Enclave had ever seen. That is, until she made an unexpected landing on the outskirts of a little place called Klamath. THAT was when her career really went down the crapper. 

Daisy herself had just been a bright, springy young thing, so she was relatively unharmed. That couldn't be said for her precious flying machine with its finely tuned Gatling lasers, its loving cargo of mini nukes, its ever ready arsenal of missiles to turn on any unsuspecting lowlife, mutant, wastelander SCUM.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Over the years, she's become accustomed to such scum -- even took one of the handsomer ones as a husband not thirty years back. It wasn't exactly fair to rain death and destruction upon such pitifully under-equipped and uneducated beasts. They were doing a fine job of that themselves, in the forty years since the Enclave moved East -- taking those fine whirly-birds and missile launchers with them.

It was a shame, really, to have such wondrous machinery under the control of people who just treated them like tools. Daisy knew how to treat a ventribird: knew how to oil it up just right so the motor would hum without a hitch, how to check the powerful blades for any damage from enemy fire, how to softly caress its body with a well-used rag until it gleamed like the afterglow of a mushroom cloud. Sometimes she missed it: those smells, those sounds, those feelings. But it was no use dreaming. 

There was work to be done, people to see, children to holler at. Such was the life of an old woman. Such was the life of the lone ventribird pilot, still waiting for her chance to fly off into the sunset for one final hurrah, one final breath of thin air, one final time to say "Come fly with me".

Thanks to the courier, Daisy Whitman would not have to wait much longer.


	3. Jingle, Jangle, Jingle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor dispenses some wasteland justice.

"Well, howdy there, folks! Nice day to be out-a-visitin', isn't it?"

The lumbering Securitron rolled along outside the Prospector Saloon, waving a mechanical claw at the Goodsprings settlers that avoided making direct eye contact with him. He couldn't quite rightly tell what these nice folks were so afraid of.

All little old Victor had was a regulation 9mm sub machine gun - which hadn't worked quite right since that tussle with a giant radscorpion back in seventy-seven - and a friendly old grin on his monitor. His trusty X-25 Gatling laser wasn't even active. By just doing an old-fashioned spitballing, he was only 45.667877789328% operational - give or take a few extra eights at the end. Victor was hardly anything to be scared of if you were law-abiding folk.

He spotted a pair of wastelanders skulking about in back of the General Store. His Law Processing Unit whirred like it hadn't done since the last time those dastardly outlaw Powder Gangers were in town. At present, the two settlers were only 56.783451% likely to be breaking local law enforcement codes and regulations, but Victor hadn't seen action in a long while and it was an itch worth scratching.

"Hiya, fellas! How you all enjoying this little slice of heaven? Must be a mighty prettier sight than the open road!"

The wastelanders nearly jumped out of their skins like a duo of scaredy-cat jackalopes when the dogs came a-knockin'. A bobby pin fell out of the saloon's back door, and one of the men reached for his gun - an old .32 revolver. He was dead before he hit the ground.

The other man looked quickly at his friend and back to Victor before raising up his hands shakily, pleading with the robot.

"L-look, f-f-friend. Ju-Just let m-me go, alright? I wah-won't be causing no m-more tr-tra-tro-trouble!"

Victor, his monitor still showing the same smiling cowboy face, lowered the smoking 9mm sub machine guns that had replaced both of his mechanized claws. His screen flickered once, twice, before the man jumped into action.

A bullet hit Victor right in the monitor, blasting a small hole through one of the cowboy's eyes. This disoriented him enough for the man to take another shot. By this time, the shootout was drawing quite the crowd of Goodsprings residents - who looked out warily from their windows and fingered their guns at their sides.

"This crazy robot just shot my buddy and now he's trying to kill me! We weren't doing nothing! Nothing!"

The man was trying to convince anyone within earshot of his innocence and, for a moment, Victor's Wariness Calculation System shot up to the triple-digits. There was no way that he could fight off the whole town and still obey regulations. After all, mutilation and/or killing of innocents resulted in a fine against House Industries.

Luckily for Victor, however, the would-be criminal was too busy trying to get the town on his side. One blast of a gun was all it took to take the rascal down.

The townsfolk looked at the robot in fear.

But for Victor's part, he just gave a robotic chuckle and said, "Guess they just don't make criminals like they used to!"

The Securitron cut a path through the crowd, who stumbled and tripped to get out of his way. Now, it was time to go home. And as he rolled away, his gears clicked out a little, merry tune...

_"I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle..."_


	4. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass remembers the good old days.

Whiskey wasn't so sweet now. Not that it ever HAD been, but that was the point of the metaphorical bullshit. Whiskey just didn't cut it no more. Neither did Absinthe or Vodka or even a good old batch of old-fashioned, homemade moonshine. Alcohol had failed for the first time since before the fucking beginning of the fucking universe...or some shit like that. 

Chems might do the trick, maybe. A Buffout martini, a Jet cocktail, a delicious Mentat daiquiri. Of course, that shit was for children and pregnant women. If you're going to do chems, play like a man. Order up some Ultra Jet - Vodka spritzers with a couple of syringes of sweet as fuck Med-X on the side, why don'tcha? And what about the special of the day -- Scotch 'n' Psycho Surprise? Get THAT with a side of Slasher for no extra charge? Yes please. Make sure to tip your friendly Fiend waitress while you're at it.

Maybe this was all crazy thinking, just crazy talk. It WAS about two am after all, what Daddy used to say was the time when all the crazy in the wasteland came out to dance the hoity-toity Charleston. Maybe he didn't say it quite like that, but remembering was for pussies anyways. Alcohol and chems were all that mattered now. Don't mind that rat chewing on your leg, just shoot some Med-X! Don't even bother with dressing up for work today, just flay your office mates alive and wear their skin after taking a couple too many Mentats! Noticing that man trying to hump his drunken ass way into your pants? Just pop some good old Buffout and just let that loser get your STDs! 

Through all the chems and alcohol and sleep deprivation, Cass felt a little something. Not a whole lot, mind you. Just a little something. She felt like she missed her mama and her papa and her post-apocalyptic mailman on a mission. Too bad they were all gone. No use missing them now. 

Too bad. Too bad.


	5. Stars on the Midnight Range

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On October 23rd, 2077, the skies of Vegas lit up.

The sky lit up in nuclear fire. A thick dust filled the air and blocked out the sun. 

In the city of Las Vegas, it was Doomsday.

Dogs howled, cats yowled, people screamed. Churches were filled to the brim with old and new parishioners alike. The Strip was rife with looters, would-be saviors, and your general assortment of desperate, crazy people. The casinos were mostly abandoned, other than for security blowing apart anyone who dared to enter. It was the End, the Big One, the swan song of the United States of America. 

One, two, three, four. Four little missiles shot up into the sky like Fourth of July bottle rockets. 

One, two, three, four. Four little nuclear warheads, their barrels painted with foreign flags, careened off course. They exploded like professional fireworks when the missiles made contact.

Another volley of warheads, another volley of missiles. All direct hits.

Another and another and another. All direct hits.

The sky was like a garden in bloom, with the buzzing of missiles and the delicate petals of exploding nuclear warheads. But it was not to last. 

The warheads headed for Las Vegas once more and there were no missiles to stop them. They hit the outskirts, the suburban areas -- killing hundreds of thousands of people in one fell swoop. 

The Strip stood tall as Gatling lasers fired off the rooftop of one of the casinos, downing warhead after warhead and deflecting them back into the suburbs. 

As the smoke cleared, a shining ivory tower still remained proudly among the rubble and the fire. 

As the apocalypse wore on, the dark sky was alight with nuclear stars and the Lucky 38 -- last bastion of Pre-War Las Vegas -- was like a telescope, pointing the way into the heavens.


	6. It's a Sin to Tell a Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny learns NOT to lie to the mailman who came back from the dead to hunt him down.
> 
> Features the same gender-neutral, karma-neutral Courier from the first one-shot.

"The truth is, the game was rigged from the start."

Two blasts from the beautiful Virgin Mary was all it took for the courier to go down. Benny let Jessup and McMurphy bury the poor slob. Couldn't get his hands dirty before he was handed the shiny keys to the gates of Vegas, could he? Instead, he smoked a couple cigarettes to take the edge off. Nothing like a smoke.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful: dump the Khans off in Boulder City, hire a couple of bodyguards at the 1-88, then high-tail it back to the Tops in style. Not a problem. No prob-le-mo. 

The only problem was pretending that everything was normal, cool. Benny had to play the coolest cat in New Vegas. It was the performance of a lifetime. Should've gotten an award for it, in his opinion. On the outside, he was regular smooth old Benny-man -- always ready with an arm for the ladies and a beer for the gents. But on the inside, BOY. He felt like he was back with the Bootriders again, taking his initiation as a pimply little wasteland runt with big dreams and great hair. 

Benny had put his many ears to the door of Vegas, feeling up the pulse of the old girl like a sleazy doctor. There'd been rumors, you see. Rumors about some hot-shot with a mailbag making their way to New Vegas. Now, Benny wasn't worried. Benny was never worried. But just to be sure, he had one of the more artistic of his cronies draw up a picture of the courier he'd shot and had it distributed among his security staff. Nothing wrong with being careful, no sirree. 

So when that motherfucker of a courier just walked right into his turf, Benny was pissed. No, pissed wasn't the right word. He was fucking furious. But he couldn't touch the kid. Word on the street was that the big man himself -- Mr. House -- offering his protection. Not that Benny was worried, see. That was just a little bump in the master plan, a little kerfuffle, nothing a little elbow grease and a few shots from Maria couldn't handle. It was all going to end up just fine, you see. Just fucking fine. 

He'd pulled a real humdinger on that fucking mailman, you see. Pulled the wool right over their eyes like a Christmas sweater from dear old Granny, if dear old Granny had held a gun to your head to make you wear it that is. It was easy as pie to trick the simple little courier into a free stay in the Presidential Suite, easy as pie. Once the poor slouch was all nice and comfy in their bed, Benny sent in room service. On the house, of course. 

What he hadn't factored into his great master plan was the chance that the mailman could've SURVIVED. The little bastard even had the balls to turn on the intercom so that he'd be able to hear his cronies scream for mercy as they died. Now, Benny wasn't no slouch. He was smart, you hear! S-M-A-R-T! Ain't nothing would have brought him up to that suite, not in a million years. That didn't turn out to be a problem though. 

The courier came to him.

Locked in a room in the back of the Tops, Benny was curled up in the fetal position as he heard the brutal warfare that was going on outside. How that mailman could tear their way through a hundred armed men, Benny had no fucking clue. He could only hear the sound of a pneumatic Power Fist slinging away and the resulting screams. Eventually the sounds stopped.

Fuck.

Footsteps came towards Benny's hiding place and he couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if he hadn't lied to the hellbent courier. Maybe they could've been partners, buddies, rule the Strip as mentor and protegee. Maybe he should've just given up the chip and live a happy life in NCR. Maybe he should've put an extra bullet between their eyes. 

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

The door bust open in a shower of splinters and Benny let out a scream.

It was a sin to tell a lie.


	7. In the Shadow of the Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lonesome Drifter nearly met his end along the El Dorado Lake bed.

Along the dry, deserted shore of old El Dorado Lake, a lonesome drifter nearly met his end.

A giant radscorpion from the hills had cuaght sight of him, and advanced with chittering mandibles and clacking claws.

It only took a few shots from his daddy's magnum to bring the beast down, but the radscorpion had the final word -- its muscular, stinging tail sunk deep into the drifter's torso. He'd be dead before morning unless he could make it to the Mojave Outpost. 

The drifter, clutching and covering his wound the best he could with his duster, stumbled and swerved along the broken road alongside the lake bed. He saw a couple of giant ants across the way, but they seemed to be more interested in a brahmin carcass -- for the moment. The poison clouded his vision and desperation clouded his mind. Maybe he wouldn't make it to the Outpost after all... His limbs felt heavy and his heartbeat slowed to a crawl. 

The drifter fell with a thud in front of an old Sunset Sarsaparilla billboard. He tried to get up again, but fell down onto his bleeding stomach. With any luck, the blood loss would get to him before the poison did. He took a shaky breath to calm himself down. This would be the end, and there'd be no stopping it. All he could do was hope and pray that some magnificent traveler with a medical degree and a metric ton of radscorpion antivenom would come along. 

By morning, the drifter was still alive but just barely. No one had come to save him, but at least the scorpion's kin or the giant ants across the road hadn't come to finish him off -- not yet anyways. He passed in and out of consciousness many times during the night, but they were all intertwined by a mysterious voice.

"Stay here," The voice whispered to him, "Stay here until a courier comes, and you will live through this night."

The drifter had no idea why the voice wanted him to wait for a mailman, but he gave into his desperation. He agreed to settle down in this valley until a courier came. And, to his amazement, he survived the night. 

An NCR patrol picked him up and brought him back to the Outpost for treatment. They offered him a job, but the drifter respectfully declined. Instead of living the high life in the hills, he decided to wait by the billboard in the shadow of the valley. They might have thought him crazy, and legends along the road soon emerged that labeled him as some sort of madman or ghastly ghoul. But the drifter was not fazed. The voice had held its end of the deal, and he would hold his own. Just like Daddy taught him, all those years ago.

The drifter would not have to wait long before a courier came to him and convinced him to take up the life of a musician on the New Vegas Strip. As nice as that life was, the drifter would never forget the time he spent under that billboard, in the shadow of the valley.


	8. Orange Colored Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there was one thing Arcade hated, it was love at first sight. If  
> anything, being a middle-aged gay virgin scientist himself had jaded him  
> against any and all romantic fairy-tales. And it wasn't like he loved the  
> Courier at first sight. Not in the slightest.

Arcade didn't know quite why he'd ended up chasing around the Courier, or even how they'd met in the first place. For the most part, all of his memories of the mysterious mailman were blurry at best, but that might have had something to do with the alcohol.

They'd met shortly before the Courier took New Vegas, just months before the final battle for the Hoover Dam. Arcade had heard of him, of course. Everyone in New Vegas had waited for the man who had dethroned Old King Benny and who was fabled to have punched out a deathclaw with his bare hands to finally come on home to the city that always had open arms for high rollers.

What Arcade wasn't expected was for the Courier to be so...so...ugly. When the myth of the wastes made his way into the Old Mormon Fort, he had been expecting some kind of golden Adonis - a young man with flowing blond hair and piercing blue eyes, a man whose right arm was draped with nubile virgins and his left with the blood of his enemies - not a scraggly, middle-aged wastelander with a crooked nose and a puckered scar running down the side of his stinking, unshaven face. Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he just wanted to see a worn-down warrior with a nasty stench. He didn't know. It was Dr. Fitzgerald's job to do psychoanalysis, not his.

If there was one thing Arcade hated, it was love at first sight. If anything, being a middle-aged gay virgin scientist himself had jaded him against any and all romantic fairy-tales. And it wasn't like he loved the Courier at first sight. Not in the slightest. It was just that...that it was a mere interest at first sight. Nothing more than that. Nothing more, nothing less.

And now as he lay in his bed in the Presidential Suite of the Lucky 38 and listened to the Courier screw some New Vegas floozie three doors down, he realized that it would remain just that. Interest. Not love. Not love in the slightest.

No one was better at lying to you than yourself.


End file.
